Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gem presses on through tunnels that have grown disorienting in the repetition of narrow, rough-hewn passages winding through stone. More than once, she’s found herself staring at the walls in search of a distinctive irregularity, some identifying mark, a detail she hasn’t seen before. Anything to prove to herself that she isn’t wandering through an unending loop of dark passages out of a nightmare.

Her ears catch the faint hint of a sound echoing down the passageway ahead of her, and her feet move faster, driven by a surge of something between gratitude and relief. She should never have let her faith waver, should have known not to doubt her Keeper. No matter how reluctant to let her leave the clan, her Keeper would never have sent her out to fail.

Gem’s pace grows gradually faster until she’s rushing through the tunnels, seeking the source of the sounds. Despite her eagerness, she holds herself to a fast walk, resisting the desire to run blindly into unfamiliar ground with no clear sense of how far she has to go. She can’t gauge how far away the noise comes from, the distance distorted by echoing off the stone. But she must be getting closer, individual sounds starting to emerge: the clang of metal, harsh cries, voices raised in sharp orders whose words are lost in the bend of the tunnels.

As she surges ahead, the sounds grow not louder, but clearer, and the tunnel widens into a chamber that wouldn’t be considered spacious even when not filled with bodies engaged in combat. A handful of figures in blue and silver-grey armor hold off a much greater press of distorted monsters in rotting tatters. She has found Grey Wardens.

One of the creatures breaks past the front line, shoving its way between two of the Wardens. The one with a shield gives a quick shout of warning, not turning away from the throng to pursue the straggler.

The distance fighters respond smoothly to the alert, one archer and the mage backing away to the edges of the chamber as they shift their attacks from the larger mass to focus on the closer threat. Arrows and bursts of fire knock into the creature’s body but fail to slow its steady, lumbering approach.

The second archer doesn’t move, holding ground and continuing to fire steadily, showing no sign of hesitation or fear. Arrow after arrow sinks into the monster’s body, but still it advances, shuffling implacably closer to the archer standing alone in the center of the open space.

Gem moves faster, closing the distance in four quick strides as she pulls her greatsword free. The massive blade hacks nearly through the creature in one sweep, and its battered body finally collapses to leak ichor on the stone floor.

The archer’s head snaps towards her. “I had it, Ren. You don’t need to–” Hard blue eyes stare at her. “You’re not Ren.”

“I’m not,” she responds brightly.

The archer’s expression doesn’t soften. “Well, ‘not-Ren’, you shouldn’t be here.”

With that, the Warden turns away and resumes shooting arrows into the mass of creatures pressing against those holding the front line.

“What he meant to say was ‘thank you’.” The mage has appeared at Gem’s shoulder during that brief exchange, chiding voice raised to carry into the combat.

“I didn’t, actually,” the archer calls back without looking, the sharp edge to his voice slightly less cutting.

“You should have.” The mage turns back to Gem with a slightly weary smile. “But a lack of manners doesn’t make him wrong. Darkspawn are dangerous. In ways that can’t be fully negated by a large sword, no matter how skilled you are with it. Which you do seem to be, I realize.” The mage offers her a half shrug in apology. “Stay back. I’ll explain when this little mess is dealt with.”

With a grudging nod, Gem steps back, resheathing her sword. As much as she hates standing idle through a fight, she didn’t seek out the Grey Wardens to disregard their expertise. She’ll have to make use of the time to study the people who she hopes will be her future comrades.

The mage is still closest to her, long hair as bright as the flame bursts that lick from the tip of a wooden staff held tightly in a grey-tinged hand. The mage’s eyes are never still, flicking around the battlefield between the creatures – the darkspawn – and the other Wardens, constantly assessing.

The archer that Gem rescued remains driven, firing a relentless stream of arrows with barely any pause for aim or thought. His face is partly hidden by the fall of his hair, which she can tell is pale with dark ends, but the color is impossible to make out in the dim light of the chamber. Gem can’t see many of his features, but there is tension in the line of his jaw that rivals that of his bowstring.

The other archer is harder to spot, melting into the shadows created by the uneven rock walls of the cave. The archer might almost be a shadow, if not for the pale face half concealed by a black mask and a shock of light-colored hair that stands out against the dark of the rocks. The concealed archer might be loosing fewer arrows than the other, but they all appear to be placed cleanly to inflict maximum damage on the darkspawn.

The front line consists of two figures standing in a narrower gap in the rock, holding back the press of creatures that struggle to pour from the tunnel ahead. The one on the left must be Ren; no one else has a sword large enough to be mistaken for Gem’s. Ren’s long dark hair swings with the movements of combat, and Gem spots flickers of magic woven through the fight as well. Ren’s combat spells are different from hers, more visceral but no less effective. Ren’s combat style overall appears less refined, full of almost reckless overextensions that place an alarming amount of trust in the shield wielded by the other Grey Warden holding the front line.

Ren’s trust seems warranted; the shield holds, no matter how many darkspawn break against it. Every one of them is cut down by targeted, precise thrusts of the Warden’s sword, far more controlled than Ren’s wide sweeps. Gem spots pointed ears like her own poking through shaggy blond hair, but the Warden’s face is bare.

Time blurs together into a stream of gruesome combat. The crush of darkspawn continues in a relentless press, and no matter how many bodies the Grey Wardens fell, they are replaced by more. Even the most resolute warrior has limits, and the Wardens eventually begin to falter. The gaps between the twang of bowstrings grow longer, the bursts of fire flicker less brightly, and the resolute shield sags with every impact. Gem grips her sword hilt tightly, grappling with the urge to disregard the mage’s warning and lend her strength to the fight.

A rapid movement catches Gem’s eye, a flash of red off to the side of the combat. Her sword is partway drawn before she gets a good look at the figure running in from the side tunnel. She lets the blade fall back into its scabbard at the sight of a dwarf wearing Warden armor with a bright red scarf. The dwarf’s face is covered in dark lines and split by a wide grin, breathless laughter spilling out. “Get back!”

The other Wardens respond instantly, the two front-line fighters yielding their hard-fought ground without hesitation. The darkspawn swell after them, pouring into every inch of space that they’re granted.

A deafening burst of sound fills the chamber, and Gem is nearly knocked from her feet by a wave of pressure hitting her chest. The air fills with the grinding crush of rocks, inhuman screams, and gritty dust. When the ringing in Gem’s ears clears, it is replaced by the strong clash of blades and steady thrum of bowstrings, with the exultant laughter of the dwarf ringing over it all. The tunnel ahead is gone, and most of the darkspawn with it, replaced by a mass of jagged rock. The Grey Wardens have found a new surge of energy from some deep well, and the few remaining darkspawn are quickly cut down. The chamber falls quiet for the first time, filled with ragged breathing rather than violent shouts.

The masked archer melts out of the shadows, gaze focused past the dwarf down a side tunnel. “Are there more following you?”

“There shouldn’t be.” The dwarf’s enthusiasm remains undimmed. “I collapsed that tunnel, too!”

Ren turns away from the final three darkspawn twitching on the ground, leaving the elf to meticulously run a sword through each of them until they stop moving. “That’s excellent work on being thorough about stopping pursuit, but I can’t help noticing it is less than ideal for finishing our mission to survey this area.”

The dwarf shrugs with a cheeky grin. “The way I see it, that means you have a plan for tomorrow: ordering someone to explore all of the branches we’ve passed and find out which ones go through to somewhere we haven’t been. I’m basically doing your job for you. All you need to do is choose who’s best at drawing maps.”

The blue-eyed archer groans dramatically. “Etho, can we please feed him to the darkspawn?”

The masked archer chuckles, warm and light, startlingly at odds with Gem’s initial impression of a lethal shadow. “Request denied.”

“That’s what you say now. I’ll ask again when we’re six hours into untangling this labyrinth.”

“No one said I was going with you.” Etho’s grin is evident despite the mask, displayed in crinkled eyes and a laugh just under the words. “Cleo’s been wanting to brush up on their scouting skills. I couldn’t deprive them of this chance to learn.”

The other archer laughs, and Gem swallows down a matching giggle bubbling in her throat. The mage jumps in to protest. “As much as I appreciate your generous offer, that is an experience I would be more than fine with missing.”

“I distinctly remember you saying, just the other day, how much you’d been wanting to learn new things. ‘Etho, I’m tired of being seen as only my mana,’ you said. And here I am, offering you the chance to learn a new skill, and you’re not even going to consider it?”

Gem’s attention is drawn away from Etho’s speech by deliberate movement from one of the other Wardens. The elf’s eyes are locked onto her, shield starting to raise back from a loose hold into a defensive position. “Cleo, who’s your new friend?”

“You know, there wasn’t really time for introductions, what with the darkspawn and all. You could try asking properly like a civilized person.” Their words to the elf hold more of a barb than the fond chastisement bantered with either of the archers.

Gem steps forward to speak for herself, undaunted by the other elf’s skeptical regard. “My name’s Gem.”

Ren crosses to meet her, sword sheathed and hand outstretched, taking long decisive strides that draw all attention and wearing a smile that defuses tension. “Well met, Gem. I’m Ren.” The welcoming grip around her hand is callused and warm. “How can the Grey Wardens be of service to you?”

Gem returns the firm handclasp and meets the pale blue gaze. “I’m here to join your order.”

Chapter Text

Joining the Grey Wardens turns out to be more involved than signing a contract or taking an oath. Gem gathers quickly that there’s some sort of magic ritual required, although no one gives her any details about it.

Ren’s smile had wilted at her announcement. “Are you sure? That’s not something many people ask to do.”

Etho cut in, voice flat without any trace of the previous humor or warmth. “We can’t afford to turn anyone away.”

“But given the risks…”

“We don’t make that call.”

Ren acquiesced and announced a Joining with forced brightness. The news drew mixed reactions from the other Wardens, ranging from curiosity to skepticism to what might have been a flash of pity quickly hidden by the fall of pale hair.

No one talks to Gem on the walk to the group’s base camp, a short trip through more maze-like winding tunnels, ending in a cave slightly larger than the one where they had encountered the darkspawn. Gem stands awkwardly near the cavern entrance while Ren and Etho gather supplies for the mysterious Joining. Etho and Cleo exchange a meaningful glance, and Cleo stays close to Gem while the other Wardens slip away to distant corners of the chamber or down small side tunnels. Cleo casts a concerned glance after the archer whose name Gem hasn’t caught yet, but they remain stationed at Gem’s side while Etho and Ren prepare the ritual.

The Joining itself hardly seems worth the capital letter. It’s just a few words and a cup of pungent unknown liquid to drink. The aftereffects prove more notable.

Gem comes to on a stone floor with a piercing headache and a throbbing in her bones.

Cleo, seated at her side, gives a weary smile as Gem’s eyes slowly open. Someone has built up a fire in the base camp cavern while Gem was unconscious. In the flickering light, she gets her first real look at Cleo’s face. The greyish tinge to their skin wasn’t an artifact of the dimness of the tunnels. The unhealthy pallor is even more pronounced in the warm glow of the fire, as are the blackened veins that run along one side of their neck. But that does nothing to detract from the compassion in the green eyes that study Gem as she drags herself to a seated position. “Welcome to the Grey Wardens. How are you feeling?”

Gem groans as every joint protests her incautious movement. “Kind of like I was the one who spent the afternoon fighting a horde of monsters.”

Cleo’s laugh echoes warmly. “It’ll do that. Is there anything more specific? Sharper pain somewhere in particular? Etho likes me to attend Joinings to heal up the recruits who survive.”

“I might not have survived?!”

“But you did, so you’ve no need to worry about it now.”

Gem can’t smooth it aside quite so easily, her mind reeling at the near brush with death she hadn’t even been aware she was having. Had her ancestors known the danger she would be facing when they sent her to become a Grey Warden? Had they foreseen she would survive the Joining ritual or simply thought the risk worth taking? Even if she had a way to ask them, Gem doubts she would get a clear answer.

“I had no idea the Grey Wardens were quite so mysterious. What other secrets can I learn now that I’m a member?” Gem means it as a joke, but it falls flat, Cleo looking away with a slow exhale.

“I’ll leave answering that to Ren. He can do some of the work around here, for a change. It’ll do him good.”

Ren’s easy smile had melted away as soon as Gem had asked to become a Warden, and he hadn’t looked her in the eyes once during the entire ritual. “Is that why Ren didn’t want me to join, because he knew it might kill me?”

“Ren isn’t used to people joining up by choice. We don’t get a lot of volunteers.”

“Did the rest of you not choose to be Grey Wardens? Do you not want to be here?”

“I do want it, now. I’m not sure there’s anywhere in my life I’ve been happier, to tell the truth.” A wry half smile pulls at Cleo’s cheek, sending creases through the branching black line that snakes across their cheek. “But it wasn’t something I had much choice about at the start. Etho made it clear that Joining the Grey Wardens might kill me, but not Joining them certainly would.”

“He threatened you?” Gem’s hand reaches for her sword hilt without a conscious thought, but she relaxes her grip at Cleo’s soft chuckle.

“Etho? Never.” They shake their head, as if the very idea is amusing, before bringing their hands together briskly. “I did promise that I’d explain why darkspawn are dangerous, beyond the obvious, and I suppose now’s as good a time as any. Let’s just say that the story of how I became a Grey Warden is a little more dramatic than yours.”

This had not been Cleo’s plan.

To the extent that they’d had a plan when fleeing the chaos that erupted in the wake of their Circle rebelling, it had decidedly not included getting lost in abandoned mining tunnels inhabited by a pack of monstrous corrupted not-people. After the initial ambush, Cleo fled, blood oozing from wounds along their arms to coat the wood of their staff and drip from the tips of their fingers. They could almost hear the demons pressing eagerly against the Veil, doing the demonic equivalent of salivating over every spatter of crimson.

Let them watch. Let them yearn. Cleo had ignored their whispers for years; what was another few minutes?

Tightening their grip on the blood-coated staff that threatened to slip from their hands, Cleo ran headlong through the old mine. The glowing embers at the tip of their staff swung with their movement, casting the walls in a shifting chiaroscuro that turned every shadow into the false promise of a side chamber. Pain spiked in their thigh every time their right foot hit the stone floor, and the warmth seeping down the outside of that leg reminded Cleo that they couldn’t run forever.

One of the shadows didn’t fade away when the staff light hit it, revealing a shallow alcove stacked with battered crates and timbers. If they’d had the breath to spare, Cleo might have sobbed with relief as they staggered to a halt, leaning heavily on a stack of crates whose spongy texture threatened to crumble under their weight. Fighting back the dimness closing in on the edges of their vision, Cleo drew in three deep, shaking breaths then forced themself back to their feet, ignoring the streak of dark red left behind on the rotting wood.

Firm prodding with the base of the staff identified a small number of timbers firm enough to prop together in a makeshift barricade, backed by the dubious support of the least crumbling of the crates. With that accomplished, Cleo settled gracelessly to the floor to gather mana to heal the deepest wounds, bind up the rest with tatters from their robes, and drink what little water remained in their flask. Only then did Cleo let the exhaustion claim them, darkness sweeping across their vision as they sagged back against crumbling wood almost soft enough to make a cushion.

Time grew fragmented, passing in shattered slivers of consciousness. The scraping movement of creatures on the other side of the barricade reduced to a negligible background noise once it became clear that they weren’t breaking through. Cleo drifted in and out of fitful sleep, drawn to awareness by the pain of gashes across their limbs that first burned feverishly hot and later settled into a clammy coldness that spread through the rest of their body. Creation spells helped at first, knitting inflamed tissue back together, at least enough to stop the bleeding, although the weak reserves of mana Cleo could scrape together had no hope of restoring lost blood or rebuilding torn muscles.

When the pain stopped and the sites of lingering damage went cool, Cleo wasn’t foolish enough to take it as a good sign. Warmth meant blood flow to a recovering injury, nutrients for healing and vigilance against infection. They weren’t entirely sure what a chill meant – insufficient blood? necrotic tissue death? – but something so rare it had never come up in any of the basic Creation lectures or texts couldn’t be a good sign.

Peeling away the bandages confirmed that the angry red signs of inflamed tissue had faded into faint silvery scars barely visible against pale skin. In the dim light afforded by the tiny flame spell their residual mana could sustain, that pallor looked exaggerated, tinted almost a cool grey despite the orangey warmth of the light. Faintly, as their eyes drifted closed again, Cleo wondered if they ought to try to gather the energy to worry.

They revisited that question again in other bouts of consciousness, interspersed with foggy dreams batting away demons that fluttered at their mind like moths against a lamp. It hardly seemed worth the effort to panic; they were so tired and so cold, and besides, what more could they do about the situation, trapped in a tiny stone chamber with no resources besides long-abandoned mining supplies?

There was nothing to do except wait for the main passageway to go silent and watch the slow progress of black veins creeping up their arms.

The sound of repeated knocking against the hastily constructed barricade jolted Cleo out of their uneasy sleep. They clambered to their feet, fighting off a wave of dizziness, and drew mana to their hands in preparation to repel this direct assault on their makeshift shelter.

But rather than the scraping and grunts of mindless creatures, the knocking was followed by a distinct voice. “Is someone in there?”

Cleo kept the mana pooled in their hands. Just because the things hadn't spoken before didn't mean they weren't capable of it. Speech was no mark of civility; any mage could tell you that.

“That depends. Are you a monster?” They hadn't meant for the words to come out so plainly, the weight of exhaustion and the creeping ice under their skin robbing their tongue of any cleverness.

“I don't… think so?” A soft chuckle. “I guess some people might disagree, but they aren't here, so you'll have to take my opinion.”

It was the touch of humor more than the words that decided it. Cleo let their mana drain away and clumsily deconstructed a portion of the makeshift wall to peek out.

Prying the timbers back revealed a man in worn leather armor with a narrow strip of skin visible between a black mask pulled over the lower half of his face and the black headband holding back his silvery-white hair. One eye was dark, while the other gleamed almost red with reflected light from their staff, but neither seemed to hold malice. He had a bow slung over his shoulder, holding empty hands up to demonstrate a lack of threat. “Not a darkspawn, see. Mind if I come in?”

Cleo shifted one of the lighter timbers far enough to let the man slip through. By the time they replaced it, he’d settled in perched on some of the crumbling timber with his back leaning against the stone wall. His mismatched eyes tracked Cleo’s movement in the cramped space, but his relaxed posture appeared deliberately nonthreatening, and he waited for them to speak first.

“Darkspawn? Is that what those things are called?”

The man nodded with a hum of assent. “This area has lots of them. That's probably what you ran across.” His eyes flicked towards the barricade, then back to Cleo. “I have to say, there's a lot of blood out there. I wasn't really sure I'd find anyone alive in here.”

Cleo’s sluggish brain struggled to come up with an excuse that didn't involve magic - it wasn't all theirs, they'd always clotted quickly - before reality settled in. They were dressed in shredded Circle robes and clutching a glowing-tipped staff. The man would have to be blind not to suspect Cleo of being a mage.

“I've always had some skill with Creation spells. Enough to keep myself alive, at least so far.” They grimaced, glancing down at the dark lines on their forearm. “I tend to be better with wounds than infection.”

The man lurched forward like a spring uncoiling, relaxed posture vanishing as he gripped Cleo’s arm tightly in one gloved hand. The fingers of his other hand traced over the dark veins, and his breath hissed out between his teeth. His voice came out hard and clipped. “You’ve got two options for how this can go from here.”

“I choose the one that includes you taking your hands off me and getting the Void out of here.” Cleo wrenched their arm away from his uninvited grip.

“You say that now…” He chuckled. “But the option where you kick me out is also the one where you die.”

“Are you threatening me?” Cleo let the flame on their staff flare higher, let the mana spark in their eyes. “Is that really how you see this ending?”

“No, no threats here,” he responded quickly. “I don’t want to kill you. I won’t say I’m not going to, because there’s an outside chance I might have to at some point. But I wouldn’t know it was you by then, if that makes it any better.”

“You know what? It doesn’t.” The fire licked down Cleo’s arm to pool in their palm. “Start talking, or start burning.”

“Mhm, that is a – yep…” He retreated to his previous position leaning against the wall, putting space between them and holding his hands out to show empty palms. “Maybe we can avoid throwing fire around in an enclosed space full of old, dry wood.”

“Then start explaining. Everything.”

“Everything, huh?” His posture relaxed, slumping further against the wall and tilting his head back. “That could take a while.”

“Do I look like I have somewhere to be?”

A soft chuckle. “Everything it is.” He paused for a moment before starting. “So darkspawn. They’re kind of… corrupted people is the best way I can describe it. And they spread that corruption. Land they occupy gets blighted. People exposed to their blood can be tainted.” He gestured towards Cleo’s bare arm. “That’s what happened there. Darkspawn taint is like an infection, but worse. I don’t know of any magic that can cure it, so it’s not just you having trouble with it. Once it’s in someone, it spreads that corruption until it kills them. That’s what I meant about you dying.” He paused awkwardly. “Sorry?”

That was too much to take in, and yet not entirely a surprise, given the feeling of decay that had been creeping under their skin, stronger every time they woke. Their fingers, now that they looked at them more closely, had turned grey at the tips, and the numbness inside their boots suggested their toes weren’t faring any better. Corrupted people, he’d said… “Is it turning me into one of them, a darkspawn?”

“No, it won’t do that.” The denial was immediate and reassuringly firm. “There are ways that can happen, but standard taint isn’t going to do it. That would take a lot more.” He held their gaze for a moment, eyes serious. “I would kill you before it happened.”

It didn’t feel like a threat. Instead, Cleo felt a flicker of memory, frightened apprentices whispering in the dark dormitory the night before a Harrowing. “What if they make me Tranquil? I don’t want to live like that.” “You won’t. I promise.”

Cleo blinked away the fuzziness from their vision, returning to the present room. “That’s probably an odd thing to thank someone for, but… Thank you.”

He nodded. “That’s not the first choice, but you know… I doubt being here at all was your first choice. Underground. In a mine full of darkspawn. In a storage closet with an annoying Grey Warden. Any of it.”

A chuckle scraped its way out of Cleo’s dry throat, turning into a cough halfway through. “No, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Of course, it’s not like choice is something I have a great deal of experience with, so it’s fine.”

His face shifted, but between the mask and the flickering play of light and shadow, Cleo couldn’t begin to read meaning into it. “I offered you a choice, about the taint. It’s not a great one, but it’s something.”

“I do appreciate being offered an alternative to certain death.”

He huffed an exhale that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Even if it’s uncertain death?”

“Still marginally better.” Cleo shrugged. “I’m listening.”

“Grey Wardens – that’s the group I’m with, if I didn’t mention that – are immune to darkspawn taint. We kind of have to be, to fight them, which is most of what we do. That’s why I was down here, scouting out the area to see how bad the darkspawn had gotten since the last time we checked. Not great, could be worse.” He shrugged. “But when a person becomes a Grey Warden, any taint in their system gets… not cleared so much as halted. Joining isn’t a cure, but it stops the spread.”

“You’re suggesting I should become a Grey Warden.”

Cleo found his noncommittal hum less than reassuring. “Not suggesting, exactly. Think of it as an offer?”

“I take your ‘offer’ to be a Grey Warden, and this corruption stops killing me. Why are you acting like I’m going to refuse?”

“Well, you see…” He paused with a sigh. “The Joining isn’t just an agreement or a ceremony. There’s a ritual involved.”

“I assumed, if it’s going to grant immunity to darkspawn taint. That’s not the sort of thing you get by signing a contract. So what? Do I look like I’m afraid of magic?”

“You don’t look like someone who gets afraid; you look like someone that makes other people afraid.”

Cleo choked out another rough laugh. “I’m sure I’m very intimidating, covered in my own dried blood and barely able to hold my head up.”

“That is not the argument you think it is.”

“Well, then, if I’m so terrifying, answer my question: what’s so awful about being a Grey Warden that you think I might prefer to take my chances with the darkspawn?”

“Oh, being a Grey Warden is great. Adventures, companions, no one telling you what you can and can’t do. The problem isn’t being a Grey Warden; it’s becoming one.” He shifted under Cleo’s intent gaze. “Immunity to darkspawn isn’t easy to come by, and it’s not for everyone. Some recruits don’t survive the Joining.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes? That’s kind of a big deal.” He looked away. “I did say that I don’t want to kill you.”

They sighed. “That’s very sweet of you to worry about, but it’s also rather stupid.”

His eyes snapped back to theirs like he was going to protest, but they didn’t give him a chance.

“My choices, as you’ve presented them, are to do nothing and stay here until I inevitably die of this wasting corruption, or to join your order where I have a chance of adventures with no one making my decisions for me, and worst case scenario, I still die but I get to do it somewhere with better scenery than this.” They wave a hand in a weak gesture meant to encompass the alcove full of dry-rotting and bloodstained wooden debris. “Why would I ever say no?”

Time got fuzzy for Cleo after that.

Their travel from the abandoned mine to the Grey Warden base existed in their memory only as a series of disconnected fragments. Staggering over uneven terrain barely visible through a grey haze that fogged up their vision. Huddling beside a campfire that did nothing to dispel the numb chill spreading through their hands and arms. Drifting in and out of a dark fog filled with choking, scraping sounds that came and went erratically until Cleo lost all ability to distinguish the reality inside their head from the one outside of it.

Etho, as the Grey Warden had eventually introduced himself, remained the only constant in their moments of lucidity. Every time they surfaced from the cloudy darkness, he was there. A steady arm when they stumbled. Gentle hands tucking a blanket around their shoulders. A soft voice talking about things that made little sense but offered something concretely human for their senses to grasp onto as they struggled to retain a sense of reality.

Placing their trust and life in the hands of a man they had met by chance a handful of days ago, Cleo drifted.

The scenery stopped changing at some point. They must have reached their destination. With nothing to do but wait, it became even harder to surface to an external awareness. Cleo’s world became a blur of creeping cold and the faint strains of sounds just out of reach. They weren’t demons, not quite, but they had something important to say. If Cleo just kept listening, surely they’d start to make sense…

A jolt of fear cut through the fog as Cleo’s eyes fixed on the emblem of a flaming sword enameled onto a shield. “Templar!”

Cleo might not be able to feel their fingers any more, but they had no difficulty drawing fire to them, ready to lash out against this unexpected threat.

“I don’t know what new kind of abomination you are, but you’re the least scary thing I’ve faced this month.” A male voice rang out, drawing Cleo’s attention to the figure holding the shield, a blond elf with unusually pale skin and a sneer twisting his face. His other hand was reaching for a sword but hadn’t drawn it yet.

“I don’t need a demon to take you down.” Cleo drew their spine straight and faced him, hoping he couldn’t see how much they were relying on their staff to stand. Fire swirled violently around their hands, and they fought for the control to direct it.

“Maybe not, but you need your mana to make that light show.”

The air grew thick with the intangible pressure of a building Silence. Cleo struggled to draw a breath and gathered the fire to hurl before their mana was ripped away.

“Back down!”

It took a moment to place the sharp commanding voice as Etho’s. The Warden stepped between the two of them, bow drawn and pointed not quite at the Templar. He’d placed his unprotected back towards a furious mage, and that show of trust, more than his words, helped Cleo find the control to let the mana start draining away, the fire flickering into nothing. The pressure around their lungs eased, and they drew a deep, shuddering breath.

Despite letting the Silence go, the Templar persisted. “Do you have any idea what a possessed mage is capable of? They’re a disaster waiting to happen. They’re–”

“They’re a Grey Warden recruit, same as you.” The steely edge in Etho’s voice didn’t waver, and neither did the arm drawing his bowstring taut. “If you can’t handle treating a mage as your equal, leave now. You can deal with the taint on your own.”

“You don’t understand!”

Etho raised his bow slightly, pointing more squarely at the Templar’s torso. “I understand what I need to.”

The Templar’s face twisted in frustration, but his hand moved away from his sword hilt. “Don’t blame me when they incinerate you in your sleep!”

“I’ll take my chances.” Hints of familiar easygoing humor leached back into Etho’s voice as the tension bled away from the encounter.

“That you will.” The Templar spat the words as he turned on his heel and strode away.

Etho’s awkward chuckle brought Cleo back to a sense of familiar reality. He turned, tucking his arrow back into its quiver and brushing hair away from his scarred red eye. “Sorry about that. I would’ve warned you about him, but I didn’t find out until just now.”

“What is he doing here?” Cleo peered after the retreating Templar, glad to have distance but uneasy with letting him out of their sight.

“The same thing you are. One of the other scouts found him and brought him back. After escaping from the collapse of his Circle, he’d managed to get infected with Darkspawn taint, too. Not as far along as you, it looks like, but still something that only the Joining can fix.” Etho’s voice took on the light tone Cleo had come to think of as indicating a grin beneath the mask. “You and Martyn have a lot in common. Maybe you’ll get along better once you get to know each other.”

Cleo snorted. “We could hardly get on worse.”

“Eh… No one actually got stabbed or burned. Not the worst social interaction I’ve seen.”

“I worry about your idea of friendship.”

He shrugged but didn’t deny it.

“Regardless, don’t get too set on me befriending someone who called me an abomination on sight.”

“I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, Cleo. For now, though, I suggest you get some rest while we prepare for the Joining. It’s your choice, though.”

Cleo couldn’t keep a small smile from their face. “I’m going to choose to sit down before I fall over. Come get me when it’s time.”

Whether it was Etho or one of the other Grey Wardens who got them when the ritual was ready, Cleo couldn’t have said. They didn’t know how far they had walked to reach it, whether it was taking place indoors or out in the field. If there were words recited or oaths made, Cleo couldn’t have said who spoke them or what they meant.

Cleo’s awareness of the Joining could be captured in three things: the glint of light on a dull silver chalice, the familiar metallic tang of lyrium cutting through the foul concoction coating their tongue, and pain. So much pain.

Searing pain scattered the fog filling their mind, twisting the discordant whispering voices into a single-minded howl of agony. The ice in their veins burned away, replaced not by the comforting familiar warmth of fire but the implacable searing of acid. Feeling rushed back into the numbness of their hands and feet, an overwhelming surge as the lack of sensation was eclipsed by intense waves of pain.

A strangled noise to one side drew Cleo’s attention to where Martyn lay on the ground at their side, twitching in violent spasms, his breath hissing through gritted teeth. Tears leaked out of the corners of his tightly-closed eyes. The spiderweb of dark veins that had marred his cheeks flamed an angry red, a mirror for the acid roiling beneath Cleo’s own skin.

They were joined, not just to the Grey Wardens, but to each other, united in suffering. Cleo saw and understood him and knew that, in this moment, he was the only person in Thedas who could fully understand them in return.

Cleo reached over to grip his hand, their greyish skin dark against his pale fingers. “We’re stronger than this.”

His eyes snapped open to stare at Cleo, the pale blue dull and clouded by pain.

“Listen to me, Martyn.” They squeezed his hand tightly, grounding them both to a single point of contact in the maelstrom battering their senses. “We survived the Maker-forsaken nightmare of life in a Circle. We are not going to be taken down by lyrium-laced blood, no matter how vile it tastes.”

“Right.” Martyn returned their grip, his eyes brightening and his grimace of pain taking on a slightly manic tilt. “We are going to survive this and make that into a problem for every Darkspawn that was ever not-born.”

Cleo choked out a laugh through their dry, raw throat. “That’s the spirit. Never mind what the Sisters say about holy devotion to the Maker, spite is absolutely the best motivator.” Their grip on his hand shifted to a clasp that felt like a pledge. “We are going to live and make that everyone’s problem.”

Chapter Text

“Oh…” Gem isn't usually lost for a response, but that's not quite the sort of story she expected. She wonders again if her ancestors really knew what they were sending her into when they guided her to become a Grey Warden. She lets the silence fill the cavern for a moment before giving in and asking the most pressing question. “So is that why you…”

“Why I look like this?” Cleo steps in as she falters, offering a wry smile as they gesture with grey-tinged fingers towards the dark lines that spiderweb across their cheek. “Like I’m half darkspawn myself?”

“I wasn’t going to put it like that.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it.” They lift their shoulders in a loose shrug. “As Etho promised, the Joining stopped taint from advancing, but it couldn’t reverse what had already happened. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s still a better outcome than being dead.”

“You and… Martyn, was that the Templar’s name?” At Cleo’s nod, Gem continues. “You both became Grey Wardens to save your lives. And from Ren’s reaction, it sounds like that’s the usual story. Did anyone other than me choose to be here?”

Cleo chuckles softly. “The one with the story closest to yours – sent to our order on instructions of your people – would be our dwarf. That was before Ren got here, but Grian’s the last time someone walked up to one of our patrols and announced they were joining the Wardens.”

Etho appeared to be developing a concerning habit of returning from scouting missions with strays.

The next one, to Cleo’s surprise, was a dwarf, bounding along cheerily at Etho’s side while keeping up a constant stream of chatter. His beardless face bore dark geometric tattoos whose resemblance to a skull was somehow enhanced by his broad smile and wide dark eyes as he marveled at everything around him, from a tree to the clouds to a wooden tent peg. He must be new to the surface, all of this presumably as novel to him as meeting a dwarf was to Cleo. There weren’t exactly a lot of dwarves in the Circle of Magi. Or among their Templar jailers, for that matter.

The dwarf’s roving attention fixed onto Cleo, his gaze roaming over their features, eyes pausing at specific places in a way they'd grown familiar with in the months since being tainted.

“Are you a darkspawn?” he asked. “Because you kinda look like a darkspawn.”

“I'm not. I'm a Grey Warden, just like Etho.”

“Well, maybe not just like…”

“Be nice, Etho. We have company.”

He chuckled softly. “Aw, Cleo, I’m always nice.”

That didn’t warrant a response. Instead, Cleo repaid the dwarf’s intent scrutiny, wondering why Etho had brought him here. Any dark veins of corruption that might be creeping up his neck were concealed by a thick red scarf, and the tattoos made it impossible to distinguish any discoloration on his face. “Is he…?”

“Not as far as I can tell.” Etho shrugged. “He volunteered.”

“I did not! I was ordered to find you.”

“Ordered?” Cleo would be the first to admit they didn’t know enough about dwarven society to begin to evaluate the likelihood of that claim. “By whom?”

“My Legion Commander.” The dwarf shrugged casually. “He told me to come be dead up here with you all.”

Cleo frowned. “To be clear, despite appearances, being dead is not actually required.”

“Maybe not for you.”

“Grian here is from the Legion of the Dead,” Etho offered.

“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me.”

Etho ignored the dwarf’s indignant squawk of outrage and continued. “The Legion are darkspawn hunters, kind of the dwarves’ version of Grey Wardens. Except without the immunity to being tainted. They all know they're going to die, so why not get it out of the way and move on?”

“When you join the Legion,” the dwarf, Grian, picked up, “they throw you a funeral, and then you're a legionnaire and officially dead. Along with any debts you owed, crimes you committed, or dishonor you may or may not have brought upon your family.”

Well, if that didn’t paint quite the picture.

“The Wardens can’t offer a fancy funeral, but we can set up the Joining ritual, if you’re ready to make a second official lifelong commitment.” Etho tilted his head towards the area where the ritual supplies were kept.

“May as well!” Grian responded cheerily. “It’s not like anything can really go wrong: I’m already dead.”

While Cleo never did find out why Grian had joined the Legion of the Dead to begin with, they discovered fairly quickly why he had been ordered to leave it. That became clear the first time they went on patrol together and got pinned into the dead end of a branching canyon by a pack of hurlocks. Cleo called on their mana, preparing to carpet the area with the most intense Inferno they could control. Before they could release the spell, Grian pulled something from a pouch and lobbed it into the throng.

Once the ringing cleared from Cleo’s ears, they clambered back to their feet and saw that the pack of hurlocks they’d been fighting was gone, along with most of the surrounding canyon walls. The place where both had been was now occupied by mounds of rubble, the darkspawn buried under a jumble of jagged rocks and crumbled dirt like Cleo had been given a front row seat to the world’s fastest – and most conveniently timed – landslide.

Grian jumped down from a perch on top of one of the larger boulders, a wide smile splitting his face and laughter ringing in his voice. “That was amazing! My best one yet!”

Cleo still felt a bit like they had the one time they’d tried casting a Tempest and conclusively determined that lightning magic was not for them. “What was that?”

“That was why my Legion Commander sent me to the Grey Wardens.”

Cleo blinked fuzzily at the debris field. “To destroy this canyon in particular?”

“To blow things up somewhere that won’t cave in, at least not on him.”

“All right, but what was that?”

“Lyrium grenades.” Grian grinned conspiratorially. “Except mine are better.”

Cleo looked from him to the destruction, then back. “I’ve never seen lyrium do that.”

He beamed like it had been a compliment. “It’s not quite gaatlok, but I feel like I’m getting close.”

“So your Commander sent you to do your testing somewhere far away from him.”

“Apparently my ‘fascination with increasingly hazardous explosives’ is ‘fundamentally and dangerously incompatible’ with the amount of time the Legion spends in narrow corridors and ‘sites of fragile historical architecture’.” He parroted key phrases in a tone that wouldn’t have been out of place in an apprentice complaining about their stodgiest senior lecturer. “‘Go join the Grey Wardens,’ he told me. ‘On the surface,’ he said. ‘Yes, that means there’s sky. But you know what the sky doesn’t have? Big masses of rock that collapse and crush you.’” The dwarf stared upwards. “I’ve gotta say, he was definitely onto something with that part, at least.”

“The sky is known for a definite dearth of boulders. Except in the Fade. You can’t be so sure there.”

“I wouldn’t know, never been there.” Grian dismissed the topic off-handedly, starting to scramble up the newly-carved canyon wall to peer past the mass of debris he’d created. “Do you think there are more of them up ahead? I have another version I want to test.”

“That’s not volunteering,” Gem objects. “Not if he was ordered to become a Warden.”

“Weren’t you ordered to join us as well?” Cleo raises an eyebrow. “You said you found us under instructions from your ancestors.”

“Sure, but that was a suggestion, not an order. I could have ignored them, if I wanted to, and they couldn’t have done anything about it. They’re dead. Actually dead, not Legion dead.” That seems like an important distinction at this point in the conversation. “The only consequence I might have had would be a vague sense that long-dead elves were probably disappointed in me.”

“Disappointment,” Cleo nods seriously. “The worst curse that elders can inflict.”

“I think I could handle it.” Gem allows them a grin, then presses back to her original point. “But did anyone else in this group walk in of their own volition?

“If you want to put it that way, I suppose Ren did. Of course, it gets a little trickier if you ask whether he could have walked back out afterwards.”

Chapter Text

Gate duty wasn’t exactly Cleo’s favorite way to spend the afternoon. It also barely deserved the name, with the “gate” in question being more symbolic than actual. Rather than guarding a large imposing barrier that warranted a sentry, Cleo was standing at a gap in a hastily-constructed fence where a dirt path led into the current Grey Warden encampment. But it wouldn’t do to allow people to wander in to the camp unnoticed; that was no way to maintain order. Someone needed to keep an eye on the approach, and at the moment, that someone was Cleo.

Which meant they were the first one to notice the man walking casually but deliberately up the path towards the Warden camp. He wore practical traveling clothes, including sturdy boots and a red cloak thrown back to flutter behind him as he walked. His long brown hair was tied back, gathered loosely at the nape of his neck. He might not have stood out as terribly remarkable except for two things. First, he was walking casually but deliberately along a path that offered no destination other than the Warden camp. And second, there was a massive greatsword strapped to his back, the hilt projecting up past his right shoulder. That combination of factors was not something Cleo was prepared to ignore.

Stepping onto the path between the fence posts, Cleo planted their feet firmly and folded their arms over their chest. The man couldn’t possibly have missed seeing the gesture, but he continued on at the same unhurried pace.

Cleo kept their gaze leveled on the stranger, waiting until he entered speaking range. “What do you want?”

He stopped his advance, responding without drawing any closer. “Why, I seek nothing but to pass through!” His voice was rich and held melodic notes that almost made his words convincing. Almost.

“‘Through’ to where?” Cleo unfolded their arms to gesture over their shoulder at the rock face rising up behind the small cluster of tents nestled into a defensible dead end.

“Sometimes the to matters much less than the from,” the man countered with an easy smile and a wave of his hand.

Cleo arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I assume you want me to ask where you’re trying to get away from, then.”

He tilted his head with a touch of conspiratorial invitation that Cleo chose to ignore. “It’s not so much a ‘where’ as a ‘who’.”

Cleo decidedly didn’t scan down the path for signs of the man’s supposed pursuers. Taking their eyes off this traveler seemed like an invitation for trouble. And there wasn’t likely to be anyone within eyesight anyway. If he had reason to think that a threat was right on his heels, the man wouldn’t have been strolling along so casually. He acted like someone who had time.

Meaning that Cleo had time to figure him out as well. “If – and this is a big if – you’re going to be allowed in to our camp, I’m going to need a better explanation than that.”

“That is perfectly reasonable, and I can absolutely give you one.”

“And it might even be true?” Cleo arched an eyebrow.

He laughed, warm and unruffled by their skepticism. “One hundred percent entirely true… aside from some dramatic license. You can’t blame a man for wanting to tell a good story.”

“I very much can, but go on.”

“You’ve heard, I assume, of the Kingsmen?” He asked the question like it was rhetorical, and Cleo couldn’t help but enjoy giving their honest answer.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Oh…” He deflated, voice losing its dramatic inflection and taking on a dispirited and more human tone. “Well, that’s just disappointing.”

He sounded like a scolded puppy, so Cleo offered him a bone. “If I had heard of them, what should I have heard about?”

He perked up, energy returning in sweeping gestures of his hands. “A mercenary company! One I had the honor to lead. The Kingsmen were none of your common bandits, nothing so tawdry. My company was composed of noble souls, every one of them honorable and true.”

“And all of your work was entirely legal, I’m sure.”

“Alas not.” His smile faltered for a moment before returning in full dramatic force. “I have found myself entirely unable to exist within the confines of the law. I confess that I am too fond of sunlight and fresh air to dwell under the law anywhere outside of the Tevinter Imperium.” The theatrical tone dropped from his voice. “And that place is simply not my style.”

Nowhere outside of Tevinter… was he implying… Cleo shut down that line of thought hard. Apostate or not, this random stranger’s tale of woe was not their problem. “If you’ve got a loyal band of not-bandits at your beck and call, what are you doing here alone?”

“Ah, but I am not here alone. I have your charming self for company.”

Cleo shot him a flat – and above all not charming – look. “Why were you, until very recently, out here alone?”

“Our band was noble and true, strong and faithful. But we were not infallible, and none of our virtues proved sufficient to protect us when tragedy struck. There came a time when our reach exceeded… not our grasp, but our wisdom.” A shade of what looked like genuine sadness passed across his face. “We completed the job we had been hired to carry out, but in the process we unwittingly crossed someone who very much ought not to have been crossed. From that day, we have been hunted. The Kingsmen as a force were scattered and broken. We met fleetingly in small groups, but it wasn’t safe to gather in larger numbers. A life of fear in the shadows is no true life for a band such as mine. The pressure mounted until something had to give, and give it did.” He pressed his lips together grimly for a breath before continuing. “When fighting together and tending to each other’s wounds, it is trivially simple to put hands on one another’s blood. And it takes very little, mere drops, I’m told, to attune a phylactery.”

“One of them turned you in to the Templars?” The words burst out without thought, born from a place of visceral fear.

“I can only assume so,” he responded gravely. “I do not know which one, nor do I want to.”

“I would.”

He shook his head slowly, a few strands of brown hair pulling loose from their tie. “I have no wish for revenge. The members of the Kingsmen were my brethren – and sistren – and I loved all of them like family. What purpose would it serve to know which of them succumbed to the crushing weight of fear? The knowledge would change nothing of the results.”

“Results that include you bringing Templars here.” Cleo reached for their staff where it leaned against a nearby fence post, the grip of the wood reassuring in their hand.

“In my defense, I didn’t know where ‘here’ was when I set out.” He gestured broadly with one hand, then settled into a more casual pose and tone. “I still don’t, actually. You and your compatriots don’t seem very big on sign posts.”

“That’s because we’re not looking to invite in random travelers. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a fortified camp, not a wayside inn.”

“To a seasoned mercenary, like the one that stands humbly before you, the two are one and the same. A soldier of fortune like myself can find as comfortable a rest on a bedroll in the most rustic encampment as in the perfumed sheets of the finest establishment in Val Royeaux.”

Before Cleo could point out that they hadn’t offered him either, he raised his hand in a sweeping gesture and drew a breath to declaim further. “Indeed, as the founder and leader of the Kingsmen, I have spent my share of time in both. And in truth, better hospitality can often be found among those who–”

“Apostate!”

The strident cry cut off his words and summoned a surge of mana flowing into Cleo’s hand, the tip of their staff sparking into fire before they even turned their head to see the pair of armored figures that had emerged onto the path, the flaming sword emblem clearly displayed on their shields. The one that had shouted still had his arm flung out in their direction, finger pointing dramatically. His companion, a few inches shorter and bareheaded, had opted for the more sensible response of gripping his sword hilt, ready to draw.

Cleo’s reflexive reaction proved to be a mistake, the embers flaring on their staff a dead giveaway.

“Flames, there’s a second one!” The taller Templar’s voice grew shrill with fear, and the air all but curdled, growing suddenly thick and stifling. Cleo barely had time to draw a jagged breath before the full force of the panicked Silence slammed into them both.

The mercenary leader dropped to his knees with a strangled cry, voice smothered in his throat. Cleo’s legs nearly buckled as well, and they gripped tightly to their staff, trusting the study wood to support their weight. Chin lifted, they fought to stay upright, glaring defiance even as their head swam and the last flicker of their mana drained away into the clutching grasp of the Templar’s will.

“Back off! You’re not having them.” Martyn appeared in the edges of Cleo’s dimming vision, hurling forward to put himself between the Templars and their quarry. The flaming sword enameled onto his shield showed more wear than theirs, bearing scratches and nicks that had gathered over time and not been repaired. He held it every bit as high, his other hand gripping his drawn sword in a posture of confident warning. “The likes of you have no authority beyond this gate.”

“Deserter.” The helmed Templar spat the word like he regarded Martyn as little better than something to be scraped off the sole of his boot.

“Our authority extends to anywhere the Chantry is respected and the true Divine given honor,” the other added, taking another step forward. “Or do you expect us to believe we’ve stumbled into a little pocket of the Imperium?”

“Tevinter? Not likely.” Martyn’s sword tip lowered a few inches, a sign he planned to talk his way out of this one. But his shield didn’t waver. “What you’ve ‘stumbled into’ here is an extension of Weisshaupt.”

“Never heard of it.” The bareheaded Templar continued his advance, pace faltering after a few steps when his compatriot didn’t fall in at his side.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to advertise my ignorance, but you live your life.” Martyn continued to face the Templars, not foolish enough to turn his back on a clear threat, but Cleo didn’t need to see his face to picture the mocking grin that matched his tone. “I’d wager your friend there paid a little more attention during lessons that involved complicated things like books. Didn’t you? Want to share with the class what’s important about Weisshaupt?”

“It’s a Grey Warden fortress.” The helmed Templar’s words came out through gritted teeth. “Where they clearly don’t teach rabbits how to talk to their betters.”

An angry growl came from the mercenary apostate at Cleo’s side, his lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl as he struggled to lever himself upright, gaze boring into the Templar. But he barely got one foot under himself before collapsing heavily back to his knees with a keening whine of pain. He must not have ever been Silenced before, to have it hit him this hard, and Cleo added that to their mental list of the many perks of life for a mage outside of a Circle.

Martyn didn’t react to the slur, continuing in the faux-cheerful tone that had gotten under the Templars’ skin. “Full marks for the Templar with half a brain! You could even say that Weisshaupt is the Grey Warden fortress. It’s the headquarters of a storied order of warriors who are famously above all law. Including the Chantry and the Circles.” He set his feet and squared his shoulders, voice dropping into a serious register that brooked no argument. “Cleo’s a Warden. You can’t touch them.”

Cleo felt the air knocked out of their lungs like they’d been hit with a second Silence. They’d never imagined what it would feel like to be on this side of a Templar’s shield, to be the thing worth protecting.

“Fine.” The brash Templar cast a contemptuous glare at Cleo, then dismissed them. “But the other one isn’t. He’s what we came for, so we’ll take him and be on our way.”

“That’s where you’re wrong again.” Martyn’s light tone held steel at its core. “In addition to the famed immunity from the law, Grey Wardens also have the right of conscription. To be clear, since big words aren’t your strength, that means we can recruit whoever we want, whenever we want, and you can’t do anything about it.” Martyn jerked his head towards the kneeling mercenary. “I just conscripted him. He’s a Warden recruit now. You can’t touch him either.”

“You think you can stop us?” The other Templar cast a disdainful gaze over Martyn, taking him in from his worn boots to his frayed headband, tawdry in comparison to their polished armor. Cleo bristled on his behalf, but Martyn remained uncowed.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Martyn shrugged as if it didn’t matter much either way. “But you won’t have long to profit from a victory over me, if you manage one. Weisshaupt does not take kindly to people disrespecting Grey Wardens. I hear they’re still rebuilding parts of Denerim.”

A tense moment stretched out as the Templars hesitated. Would the Grey Wardens be vindictive enough to hunt them down over such a minor altercation? That would hardly be reasonable, and yet… Martyn had known exactly what he was doing, invoking the memory of an unchecked Blight ravaging Ferelen for months after its top general abandoned the country’s Grey Wardens at Ostagar. A group that would sacrifice an entire country over the acts of its military leaders might do anything.

Ultimately, that uncertainty decided it. The Templars must have judged the threat compelling enough to outweigh the capture of a single apostate – or even two if they tried to add Cleo to their tally. With a few parting curses and hollow threats, the pair of Templars turned and strode back down the dirt track. Cleo couldn’t help but take some satisfaction in the stiff fury of their posture, and judging by Martyn’s grin, he felt similarly.

Gradually, Cleo felt the flicker of their mana returning, the last traces of the Silence loosening its grip.

Once the Templars had passed fully out of sight, Martyn stood down. He sheathed his sword and loosened the fastenings on his shield, turning to Cleo with an easy smile that almost disguised the shadow in his eyes. “You all right after that?”

“I think I should be asking you.”

“If I’m being honest, it felt good to tell them off. It was a good reminder of what I don’t have to be anymore.” He turned to the mercenary, offering a hand to help steady the man as he rose back to his feet. “Sorry about conscripting you without asking first.”

The mercenary accepted the assistance, keeping hold of Martyn’s arm for a moment as he found his balance. His grin returned faster, much less wobbly than his knees. “I’m not an expert, but not asking first seems like an inherent aspect of conscription.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Martyn lifted one shoulder in a half shrug as his gaze slid away from the man’s face. “I’m willing to look the other way if you’d rather make a run for it.”

“That is a generous offer but one I must decline. I’m going to stick this out.” He clapped a hand on Martyn’s shoulder, quickly withdrawing it when Martyn startled at the unexpected touch. He shifted his stance, opening his posture to include Cleo in his audience as he continued, voice slipping back into that confident, polished tone he’d had when he first walked up. “Today has more than proven that the tether of a phylactery cannot be outrun. But more than that, this is where I choose to stay. An order of honorable warriors bound by loyalty to stand with and for each other. There are far worse fates than conscription into such a fellowship. It’s time that I begin thinking beyond ‘from’. I would be honored if you would allow me to make this my ‘to’.”

Chapter Text

“That definitely counts as duress, if there were Templars ready to catch him as soon as he left.” Gem’s getting a clearer understanding of why Ren was so confused by her. Becoming a Grey Warden really isn’t something people seem to do voluntarily.

“I did say you shouldn’t ask if he was free to leave.” Cleo shrugs. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. That’s what happened.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.” Gem glances around the stone chamber, echoing and empty as the other Wardens have yet to return from wherever they’d made themselves scarce during her Joining. Even Ren is nowhere to be seen, having apparently left during the time she was unconscious after he administered the ritual. Speaking of which… “If Ren is that recent of a recruit compared to everyone else, how did he end up in charge?”

Cleo responds with a wry smile. “Because he likes to be in charge. And Etho, who has seniority and ought to be, doesn’t.”

“That’s it?”

“It is and it isn’t. There’s a delicate balance. Officially, as far as Weisshaupt is concerned, Etho is the commanding officer for this Warden unit. He sends the reports and makes sure all of the logistical details are handled. In terms of day to day leadership, that’s where Ren comes in. He’s a natural leader, with all of his shared vision and inspiring speeches. Etho’s more than happy to leave the ‘people things’ to someone who enjoys them. It all works out, more or less. Most of us here aren’t that attached to hierarchy anyway.”

Most… Gem wagers a guess. “Except for Martyn?”

Cleo huffs a short laugh. “Except for Martyn. He may not be a Templar any more, but he does like having someone to follow.”

Gem’s pleased she’s picking up more from Cleo’s stories than just what it means to become a Grey Warden. It’s satisfying, filling in the gaps in her preliminary understanding of the people she’s going to be living and fighting alongside. Although there’s one she still hasn’t heard anything about. He must have been the most recent recruit before she showed up, if he hasn’t been mentioned in anyone else’s recruitment stories.

“You’ve told me how the rest of your group became Wardens. What about your archer friend, the one with the…”

“Attitude?”

“I was going to say hair.”

“Either one fits.” There’s something both fond and sad in Cleo’s half smile. “Scott’s Joining…” They take a deep breath, shoulders slumping on the exhale. “Scott’s Joining was difficult. If Grian’s the one whose motivation in coming to us was closest to yours, Scott is the one whose circumstances were most like mine. Only with a worse outcome.”

It turned out that Etho wasn't the only one good at finding strays.

Cleo hadn’t been expecting to come across new recruits, or people of any sort, honestly. They were out on a routine survey, monitoring for darkspawn activity or signs of blight in a wooded area not too far from the abandoned mines where they had first met Etho. Things had been quiet here in recent months; this was meant to be a few uneventful days alone in the wilderness making observations. Cleo hadn’t expected to cross paths with anyone. And they certainly hadn’t expected to walk into a supporting role in a tragedy.

Dusk was falling, and Cleo had pushed a little later than was wise, wanting to cover one more transect before setting a rough camp for the night. They always forgot how quickly night came on in the woods, how fast the light fled and the hazy twilight filled the space between trees with shadows that might hold anything.

Something moved with a scuffed, rustling noise, too large to be a squirrel or rabbit, and Cleo froze. The sound was repeated, not too close, on the other side of a dense copse of trees perhaps, and then it was followed by words.

“There you go, that’s it. Keep going, just a little further.” The voice sounded tired, not in a sleepy way, but in a thin, strained way that spoke of bone-deep weariness.

Cleo skirted the edge of the cluster of trees towards the sound, moving cautiously in the growing dark, using their staff to test the ground ahead.

Before long, a pair of figures came in sight, walking close together with one leaning heavily on the other. Details were scarce in the fading light, but they could make out armor broadening the leaning figure’s form, while the one offering support wore lighter garments, likely a cloak or long coat that hung past the knee. The pair of them made slow progress, moving in small cautious steps interspersed with staggering lurches.

Cleo drew fairly close without either of them noticing the mage’s steady footsteps over the sound of their own halting pace. “Do you need help?” It was a question too obvious to need asking, but not a bad place to start.

The unarmored one’s head shot up to lock eyes onto Cleo, and he responded, in the same voice Cleo had heard earlier. “We’re fine. Leave us be.”

“Let me try again: You need help.”

“I said we’re fine.” More strain crept into his voice with the repetition.

“He can’t even walk. He’s clearly injured.” Cleo sent a pulse of mana into their staff, and the faint orange glow of embers at the tip illuminated what they suspected: a greying pallor to the armored man’s face, his head lolling with eyes barely slitted open.

“I’ve got him.” The man supporting him tightened his grip around his waist, eyes hard and mouth set into a flat line in a face lined with exhaustion.

Cleo wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been tainted as well, the corruption not as far advanced but enough to sap his energy. They trickled more mana into the staff, brightening the light a little further.

The man’s eyes widened as he got a better look at Cleo, and he recoiled, his companion staggering at the sudden movement, nearly unbalancing them both. “Leave us be!”

An unexpected glint of light caught Cleo’s attention, and they realized that the man had drawn a blade. It was a belt knife, too small and ornate to be taken seriously as a weapon, but he held it pointed at Cleo in a hand far steadier than his voice.

“If you’ve come to finish the job, I won’t let you touch him.”

Cleo raised their empty hand, palm out in a placating gesture. “Appearances to the contrary, I’m not a darkspawn. And I’m not here to hurt anyone. I want to help, if you’ll let me.”

“I’ve already said I don’t want you to, so go.” He raised the blade a few inches, his other arm holding his tainted companion close to his side.

“If I do that, you’re both going to die.” Cleo could almost hear Etho’s little laugh in their head as they responded. “That’s not a threat, just an observation.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, and if you don’t leave, I’m going to stab you.” He paused, lips curling into a small, tight smile with no warmth. “That is a threat.”

Cleo took a step back but persisted. “You’re tainted with darkspawn corruption, both of you. And if you think I look bad, you ought to look in a mirror.”

“Rude.”

Cleo burst into a startled laugh before they could catch themself. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He raised an eyebrow but lowered his knife a hair. “How else could you possibly have meant that?”

“As commiseration. I recognize that you’re tainted because I’ve been there. I also know how to keep it from killing you, because I’ve been there– and I’m not dead.”

For a long moment, the man didn’t respond, studying Cleo’s face. His intent gaze pored over their features, whether cataloguing lingering marks of darkspawn taint or judging their sincerity they couldn’t say. But eventually he must have found what he was looking for.

Mouth set in a grim line, he sheathed his knife and raised his chin in determination. “Tell me what I need to do to save him.”

With two people to support the near-unconscious man and relying on the light from Cleo’s staff, they were able to navigate the woods more effectively. By the time dark had fully fallen, they located a passable place to rest for the night.

Cleo finished setting up a small fire and settled in to sit beside it, enjoying the warmth seeping into hands that hadn’t ever quite regained full feeling, a lingering echo of the creeping numbness from before their Joining. They looked up from the flames to the man sitting across from them. He sat with his back against a tree and his companion lying on the ground beside him, head resting on his thigh. He stroked his fingers through the sleeping man’s hair, freed from the helmet that had covered it earlier. Sensing Cleo’s attention, he looked up, face growing guarded and eyes flashing in the firelight. The hand in his companion’s hair stilled, the soothing gesture becoming protective. “What?”

“I thought we could get to know each other. We’re going to be traveling together for a few days, at the very least.” They tried their best to look warm and approachable. “I’m Cleo.”

“That’s nice, Cleo. I’m not telling you my name.”

He said it so calmly, as if it were a foregone conclusion, and a familiar one at that.

“All right, you don’t have to.” Cleo shrugged, trying to project a similar level of calm indifference. “But is there a reason why not?”

“Two reasons. My family is kind of big in Val Royeaux. And I have a lot of influential contacts within diplomatic circles.”

Cleo frowned. Was he answering the same question they’d asked? “I’m… pleased for you?”

He barked a short laugh, quickly stifled and followed by a soothing murmur to the man sleeping on his lap before responding to Cleo with a grin. “I’m not just showing off. I am pretty amazing, obviously, setting all the trends in Orlais this season.” He gestured to his unkempt hair, pallid skin, and dirt-stained clothes. “I’m also a valuable target for abduction. So no names.”

“Why does that matter?” There really did seem to be two unrelated conversations happening here. They also weren’t sure that he sounded particularly Orlesian, but a lifetime spent in a Circle followed by a Grey Warden company hadn’t exactly provided them with the most cosmopolitan set of experiences. “I’m not planning to kidnap you. But if I was, how would not knowing your name stop me?”

He rolled his eyes and delivered the answer like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You won’t know who to ask for ransom, so there’s no profit in it. With no one to extort, you’d have to let me go.”

That probably wasn’t the stupidest logic Cleo had ever heard, but only because they knew Ren.

On the other hand, there was little point arguing with someone infected with darkspawn taint. Cleo could sort out this nonsense once they got back to the rest of the Wardens. “Fine. That’s fine.” They nodded towards the unconscious figure. “Is there something I can call him?”

“My bodyguard.” The hard edge to his blue eyes and the hand curled protectively into the sleeping man’s brittle hair raised interesting questions about that designation, but answers to those seemed likely to be even less forthcoming than names.

“Well, then, good. You’re used to putting your safety in someone else’s hands. For the time being, while he’s not up to the job, you’ll have to trust me to do it. You can rely on me to keep both of you safe… seeing as I have no incentive to do anything nefarious like abducting you.”

“He may not be well, but there’s nothing wrong with me.”

That was debatable, but Cleo chose not to interrupt.

“So you guide us back to your Grey Warden post where we can get him cured, and I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you keep your word.”

Cleo let the conversation lapse there, giving in to their shared weariness. They settled in to an uneasy doze beside the fire, passing the rest of the night in scattered patches of light sleep. Every time Cleo drifted to consciousness and looked up, those eyes were already fixed on them, deep blue glinting almost green at times in the dim firelight. Cleo always looked away first.

Travel back to the Warden outpost went slowly. Terrain that Cleo had crossed in a few hours took three or more times that long. The bodyguard’s rare periods of lucidity came less frequently as time passed and the grey tinge to his skin became more pronounced. Even with two of them to support him, by the third day he could scarcely limp along, his feet dragging as often as lifting in stumbling steps. Cleo had never been more grateful for their broad shoulders and sturdy frame. Those may not have been the best features for looking demure and elegant in Circle robes, but for dragging a near-unconscious man through light woods, they fit the bill perfectly.

The other man flagged as the time went on also. He still hadn’t given Cleo a name, although during a break midway through the third day, he mentioned being an Orlesian diplomat. Maybe that explained the wariness veering on paranoia. Also the wardrobe. His once-fine clothes grew more tattered by the day, and his skin took on a pallor that couldn’t be fully attributed to fatigue. His veins hadn’t started to darken, but the whites of his eyes took on a dullness that Cleo recognized from their first encounters with Martyn. There would almost certainly be two emergency Joinings when the group of them finally reached their destination. Cleo would be happy to leave the details of that for Ren to explain.

Cleo also developed a greater appreciation for Etho’s resourceful persistence as the journey wore on. He’d managed Cleo in a similar state entirely on his own, and at least from Cleo’s hazy memory of that time, he’d likely done it with a good deal more patience than Cleo feared they were showing.

The diplomat, for all his fancy clothes, proved remarkably resilient and stubborn. He complained and whined about trivial irritations – the mud caking his boots, branches that snagged at his hair and long coat, sleeping on uncomfortable ground – but bore the greater burdens without flinching. He was never the one to call for a rest break, and even when sweat matted his hair and his breath grew ragged with fatigue, he made no complaint about shouldering the dead weight of his companion. His protective care of the man he called his bodyguard never wavered, coaxing the man to eat or drink when they stopped and soothing him to a slightly less fitful sleep when the taint seeping through his body caused him to twitch or whimper in pain.

Cleo hoped in those moments that Etho hadn’t had to do similarly for them. He’d never brought it up, and they certainly weren’t going to ask him to fill in those mercifully fuzzy spots in their memory. Cleo planned to keep the same silence for these two recruits. Let them remember what mattered from this liminal time – soft fingers on a sweaty brow, encouragement murmured too softly to carry to Cleo’s ears, a gentle and endless patience – and forget everything else.

Their halting pace eventually brought the three of them to the Warden outpost. And not a moment too soon, in Cleo’s estimation. Any doubt about the diplomat also being tainted had been thoroughly erased the previous night when he’d shoved his hands nearly into the small fire Cleo had started, complaining that his fingers were cold. A look of alarm crept across his face when even the fire failed to warm them. Cleo had tactfully kept their own grey-tipped fingers concealed beneath the edge of their tabard. No good could come from inviting comparisons.

Martyn met them at the gate, leaning against a post next to the opening in a somewhat more sturdy stockade fence at this less temporary outpost. His curious eyes swept over Cleo’s companions, appraising and cataloguing, but he made no move to raise his shield. “The prodigal returns,” he remarked before raising his voice to call over his shoulder to those inside. “They’ve come back, finally.”

“Cleo?” Etho’s voice called from somewhere on the other side of the wall.

“Yeah, it’s me. And I’ve brought friends.”

“Have you?” Martyn’s words weren’t necessarily meant to carry, but the diplomat stiffened, drawing himself up from where he’d begun to sag under the combined weight of his companion and exhaustion.

“Well, any friends of Cleo’s are welcome here,” Etho announced, emerging from behind the stockade fence. His posture and voice didn’t change upon catching sight of the guests in question, but Cleo caught a slight widening of his good eye. “Come on in and we’ll find you somewhere to have a seat.”

“We need a Joining.” Cleo had never been one to ignore the obvious in favor of social niceties.

“Both of them?” Martyn eyed the diplomat.

“I think so, yes.” Cleo caught sight of Etho nodding as they answered.

“Right. I’ll let Ren know.” Martyn slipped back inside the fence, his long stride all seriousness now.

“What exactly do I need?” The diplomat’s crisp tone struck an incongruous note with his disheveled appearance.

“The ritual I told you about that stops the progression of darkspawn taint. The sooner it’s done, the less the corruption will take hold.” They offered a wry, weary attempt at a smile. “I’m trying to save you some feeling in your fingers. It’s a nice thing to have, as I recall.”

He flexed his free hand, grimacing at the sensation. “I’ll take your word for it. Right now, I think I could do with a little less feeling all around.”

“We should…” Etho tilted his head in the direction Martyn had vanished in.

“Yes, of course.” Cleo hitched the unconscious bodyguard higher onto their shoulder and locked eyes with the diplomat. “Just a little bit further.”

Jaw set, he responded with a stiff nod, and they resumed the coordinated shuffling walk they’d perfected over the past few days, bringing both tainted men to where Ren was setting up the Joining ritual that would save them.

Etho stepped aside to let them pass, and Cleo couldn’t help feeling something was off about him. They were nearly to the makeshift ritual site when it clicked, and a leaden weight settled in Cleo’s stomach.

Etho had carefully avoided looking at the unconscious man.

The first – and only – time Cleo heard the bodyguard’s voice, it was raised in a scream of agony.

Cleo wasn’t present for the ritual, but the sound carried clearly through the small outpost, a ragged outpouring of pain. The silence when it abruptly cut off was almost worse, followed by a heart-wrenching wail from the diplomat.

Nothing could be done. When a body rejected the Joining, death was inevitable and immediate. Even so, Cleo ran towards the sound, driven by every scrap of training they’d ever had as a healer. A mage with any skill at Creation couldn’t hear pain like that and stand idly by.

Ren intercepted their approach, putting up a hand to halt Cleo’s progress before they got near the ritual site.

“He wants to be alone.” Ren’s voice held steady, but he couldn’t quite control the trembling in his raised hand.

Cleo craned to see past his outstretched arm, catching sight of the cloaked figure hunched over his companion’s limp body, shoulders shaking with sobs. “Is that really what’s best for him right now?”

“We are far past anything approaching ‘best’.” Ren shook his head solemnly, eyes downcast. “Let the man mourn.”

Cleo nodded acceptance and turned away. They drifted aimlessly around the outpost, sunk in a sense of helplessness, a healer faced with injury they couldn’t treat, a rescuer who had arrived too late. They crossed paths with Etho near the gate, his arms filled with some of the smaller timbers kept on hand for repairing gaps in the stockade. His gaze flicked away from Cleo when he saw them, and he kept his head turned aside.

Glancing through the opening in the fence, Cleo could see the start of a pyre he was building in the open field. “You knew.”

He swallowed, still not looking up. “I didn’t want to be right.”

“Could I have…” The words died in Cleo’s throat.

“No.” Etho shook his head, looking up to lock his one good eye firmly onto theirs. “You couldn’t. When the taint is that far along, all we can do is try a Joining anyway. You don’t expect it to work at that point, but you have to try anyway. Sometimes they surprise you. Not very often, but sometimes.”

“How often?”

Etho’s gaze slipped away again, his mask twitching with a twist of his concealed features. “That I’ve seen? Once.”

He hoisted the timber back up and passed beyond the fence before that answer fully sunk in.

The next person Cleo came upon was Grian, sitting perched on a barrel, his legs swinging, booted heels knocking against the slats with a hollow thud. His hands fidgeted, more ill at ease than his casual posture wanted to convey. This wasn’t his sort of dead.

Cleo couldn’t muster the energy for a greeting. “Have you seen Martyn?”

“Ren’s pretty gutted right now.” That wasn’t an answer, exactly, but at the same time it was.

“Can you go help Etho, then? He’s outside.” Cleo gestured vaguely towards the stockade wall.

“Sure thing.” Grian hopped down almost eagerly, as if glad for some direction, then paused. “Why can’t you go help Etho?”

“Because I have someone else to help right now.”

By now someone, presumably Etho, had taken the body away, and the diplomat had left the ritual area. Cleo found him a few paces away from it, sitting at the base of the stockade wall, unfocused gaze directed at the ground in front of him. He’d stopped crying at some point since Cleo saw him last. His eyes, through red, were dry, set in a pale face almost entirely devoid of expression. The violent storm of grief had swept through and left him numb in its wake.

Cleo approached slowly and, when he showed no reaction to their presence, lowered themself to sit beside him in silence, waiting for him to speak if he wanted to.

After several long minutes of nothing, he eventually did. “Scott.”

“What?”

“You wanted my name, when we first met, however long ago.” His voice sounded flat with an entirely different sort of exhaustion than before. “It’s Scott.”

“Oh… I – Thank you?”

His lips quirked the tiniest amount at that before settling back into a flat line. “I figure if I’m going to be sticking around, you ought to know.”

So he was planning to stay, in spite of… everything. Cleo trod carefully, even so. “That’s useful to know. It’ll be much better than Ren making up something to call you.”

He looked up at that, blue eyes hard and blazing. “He doesn’t get to call me anything. Not after he…” His voice broke, and he blinked twice quickly before fixing a firm gaze back on Cleo. “You’ve earned it; he hasn’t.”

It wasn’t fair, blaming Ren for what had happened. Preparing the Chalice didn’t give him any measure of control over its effects. But Cleo didn’t contradict him. If their new companion – If Scott needed somewhere to direct his grief in order to manage it, Ren was as good a place as any. He could handle it.

Cleo let the silence settle again for a few minutes before breaking it. “Etho’s set up a pyre, if you want to light it. Some people find it helps to say goodbye.” Cleo wasn’t one of them, but no need to mention that.

“That… would be nice, thank you.” The polished diplomatic manners he defaulted into felt horribly incongruous, a thin veneer over his aching grief. But as with the anger, Cleo let him have it. “If we can’t have a full proper service, at least he’ll have something.”

“I don’t know about proper, but we can probably manage a service. Martyn isn’t a Chantry Sister, but he was fairly devout before coming here. I expect he can say most of the right words, and maybe the Maker will listen.” As much as the Maker heard anything.

“I’d like that. He deserves to be remembered.”

Cleo dragged themself to their feet and offered a hand to help him up. “Then let’s go find out.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Scott accepted the offer, his hand clasping theirs. He didn’t let it go as they walked, his grip tightening at the sight of the pile of stacked wood with the wrapped body laid out atop it. Cleo squeezed back in what little comfort they could offer, and the pair of them went to join the others gathered around the pyre.

Martyn readily agreed to lead funerary rites, and if some of his Verses weren’t standard – or possibly even accurate – he delivered them with such conviction and sincerity that it would be hard to tell which ones. Other than a tense moment near the beginning when Scott’s belt knife made a brief reappearance to reinforce that Ren was not welcome, the service went smoothly, from Martyn’s opening invocation to Cleo sending wisps of mana to light the pyre. Scott seemed to take comfort from it, crying silently as he watched the flames consume both the wood and the wrapped body.

Once the rites were finished and all that remained was the progression of flames licking along the pyre, the others gradually filtered away, returning one at a time to the stockade and their duties. Scott remained, his eyes fixed on the flickering shapes of the fire. Some people believed the flames of a pyre carried messages to those with the will to see, but Scott’s unfocused gaze seemed fixed on something more distant than those shifting patterns. The heat had dried his tears into faint lines traced down his pale cheeks, but he didn’t move away.

Cleo stayed at his side, joining his silent vigil. If the presence of someone who was not quite a stranger was the best this grieving man could have, they would be damned if they denied him that meager scrap of comfort.

They remained there, both of them, until the flames had burned down to glowing embers, the heat still intense even where they stood. Cleo almost enjoyed the lick of the lingering heat, a reminder that their deadened flesh could be warmed. They wondered if Scott’s cold fingertips also soaked up that warmth, if he’d even noticed.

Cleo found one other thing they could offer him, if he wanted it. “He wasn’t just your bodyguard, was he?”

Scott didn’t startle at the sudden speech after so long of standing in silence. Abstracted gaze still fixed on the collapsed embers of the pyre, he responded as if they were picking up a conversation, his voice steady but raw from crying and from the smoke. “He was my husband, and I would burn the world to get him back.”

“I’m sorry.” Cleo couldn’t have said in that moment what they were sorry for. His loss, not having asked sooner, having brought them to a place of recovery for only one of them. Having brought them here at all.

He didn’t ask.

After a moment, Cleo spoke again, tone a fraction lighter, offering a distraction for them both. “You know, I think it may be a blessing for all of us that you weren’t born a mage. Statements like that would have the demons lining up, and I’m not sure you’d turn them away so much as hold an auction.”

He turned to face them at that, head tilted to one side, the first time he’d looked away from the pyre since his husband’s body had been laid on it. “Could they get me what I want?”

“No.” Cleo swallowed, pretending the dryness in their throat came from the heat of the dwindling fire. “The most they could do is make you think that they had.”

He lifted his shoulders in a light shrug, attention shifting back to the embers. “Then it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Cleo stayed with him, there by the cooling remains of the pyre, until the sky darkened and stars began to glimmer overhead.

Gem can only stare in shock as Cleo stops speaking. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that. ‘Difficult’ is an understatement.

Cleo’s lips curve back into that sad, fond smile. “He says he hasn’t felt warm since. Whether that’s the residual taint or the bereavement…” They trail off with a shrug.

“That’s awful!” The words burst out. “Not just that, but… all of it.”

“It was, but…” Cleo grimaces. “I can’t help thinking I may have gone about this the wrong way, starting you off with Joining stories. It’s not all doom and gloom, being part of the order. Etho was right about being a Grey Warden being one of the best experiences most of us have had.”

Gem nods slowly. It’s hard to reconcile that belief with the stories she’s been hearing.

Cleo brushes their hands together briskly. “You’re through the Joining and a proper Warden now. It’s time for you to meet your new comrades as more than their combat skills or tragic backstories.”

They raise one hand, sending a tiny wisp of flame floating across the cave. In response to that signal, the others begin to return, with Ren herding them all like a sheepdog to gather at the fire and welcome the new recruit. Within minutes, Gem is surrounded by bright smiles and conspiratorial grins promising a future full of camaraderie and shared adventures. Now that she’s survived the Joining, Etho doesn’t shy away from eye contact, those mismatched eyes crinkling with a hidden smile as he drops into easy conversation with his fellow Wardens. Ren asks Gem where her clan traveled, seeking common ground with places his mercenary company used to operate. Scott settles in at Cleo’s side, offers a chilly but soft hand to shake, and comments on the floral filigree patterns set into Gem’s armor and the decorative stitching on her boots. Cleo warns that it won’t be long before he’ll be braiding matching flowers into Gem’s hair, gesturing at wilting stems woven into their own thick tresses. Martyn remains vigilant, focused as much on the passageways leading into the cavern as the conversation happening within it. Grian stares intently at Gem’s vallaslin, comparing them to his own facial tattoos and asking which parts hurt the most to apply. It will take some adjusting to find her place in this close-knit group, but the welcome and laughter promise that she’ll carve out a perfect little niche for herself in this new clan of sorts.

The ancestors knew what they were doing when they sent her here, after all.